Monday, September 9, 2013

Hacking doors

A few weeks ago, my 2.5 year old son learned to open doors by twisting the doorknob. Joyous day? Not so much. We still had plenty of places in the house we didn’t want him going into. Naturally, we went to Lowers and got some of the plastic doorknob proofing add-ons, like this:

These are pretty simple – they are composed of two parts, which snap together around the doorknob. This rotates freely, so the kid cannot open the door by twisting it, and to actually twist the knob, you need to insert your fingers through the side-holes and apply pressure. A child doesn’t have large enough hands for this, so that worked pretty well…for a few days.

Indeed, it only took a few days for my junior hacker to figure out that by tugging on this, he was able to unclasp the plastic latches that keep this thing together, and as a result, it comes apart, revealing the knob and allowing him to open the door. What to do?

Lucky for me, I was able to figure out a way to outsmart the smartypants. The latches that hold this thing closed are small, but large enough so I could put a small screw through them, keeping the thing “locked”. I used a small drill-bit to drill through (to make sure the screw doesn’t crack the plastic) and put in very small screws, right there: